Your novel The Oxford Affair flirts with different genres: mystery, romance, comedy. Do you think of the book as falling into a genre? Is it important for a novel to have a genre?
Lynne Kaufman: I don’t think about genres when I write or when I read. When choosing a book to read, I’m drawn by the subject and the freshness and quality of thought and language. So, no, I stay away from genres. I do have favorite writers such as Rachel Cusk and Annie Ernaux. Their work is blessedly short, truthful and genre-free.
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| Lynne Kaufman, Novelist and Playwright |
LK: I love compression, and I also like dialogue that reveals character and moves the story forward. Plays are my natural form. I find novels a slog to write, too many words, and too much description. Don’t we all know what the sky, the ocean and furniture look like? I only attempt a novel when an idea won’t leave me alone and the story moves around too much for a play or needs a lot of introspection. On two occasions, The Secret Museum and Divine Madness, I wrote a novel on the same theme as the play I had just written. I just wasn’t finished.
What made you decide to narrate the story of The Oxford Affair using a first-person narrator? Did you consider a third-person narrator, and if so, why did you prefer having a character in the plot tell the story?
LK: Writing a novel in the first person is as close to writing a play as I can get. I see every character in relationship to my protagonist and her point of view. One voice and one consciousness is about all I can handle. So no omniscient narrator for me.
In some ways, The Oxford Affair is a mystery for mystery writers. The engaging and funny main character/narrator, Susan Klein, is taking a class on the traditional mystery novel at an adult education program at Oxford University. Why did you decide to include that course in the book? Did you follow the traditional rules for writing a mystery in this book?
LK: The mystery class and its reflection in the events of the novel are plot devices. I was relieved to come up with the idea, as this is the first mystery I’ve written. I didn’t follow the traditional rules for writing a “cozy,” or a detective story with an educated main character and little violence. For example, I introduced a romance. In general, I don’t believe in following rules in writing. Or in anything else if I can avoid it. The law, yes. Rules, no.
The details about Oxford University—its personalities, customs, history, and buildings—are authentically recreated in this book. How did you manage that?
LK: For twenty-five years I directed the University of California, Berkeley’s summer program at Oxford University. I had lots of observation and participation to draw on, and then I also did research to back it up. I had the unique benefit of having worked and hung out with the faculty, the staff, and the students.
There’s a deeply felt interlude in the book where the main character leaves Oxford to deal with a family emergency back home. Why did you decide to take the plot away from its comfortable, university setting at that point in the story?
LK: I wanted to reveal the protagonist Susan in the most personal part of her life, show her vulnerability, her deep love for her daughter and mom. It also let me show how helpful her suitor Nelson was and to give her a chance to miss him. And since we had met Nelson’s ex, I wanted us to see Susan’s ex. She clearly had better taste.
The descriptions in The Oxford Affair appeal to all five senses, particularly to taste and smell. How did you weave into the action of a scene the sensory experience of the characters?
LK: As a playwright I usually don’t pay attention to sensory details unless the set is on fire, so that’s why I made Nelson a restaurateur. Food I can get into, especially English high tea and French nouvelle. I gained five pounds while writing The Oxford Affair.
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